er to
me. I'm going away from here to-morrow morning." Then, after another
pause, he said:

"What sort of a man's your husband?"

"A clergyman," she answered.

"A clergyman ... good Lord!" He laughed grimly. "Still religious, I
see."

All this time she was thinking how ill he was. Every breath that he
drew seemed to hurt him. His eyes were dull and expressionless. He
moved his hands, sometimes, with a groping movement as though he could
not see. He drank his tea thirstily, eagerly.

At last he had finished. He bent forward, leaning on his hands, looking
her steadily in the face for the first time.

"It was clever of you to do this," he said; "damn clever. I was hungry,
I don't mind confessing ... but that's the last of it. Do you hear? I
can look after myself. I know. You're feeling sorry for me. Think I'm
in a dirty room with no one to look after me. Think I'm ill. I bet Amy
told you I was ill. 'Oh, poor fellow,' you thought, 'I must go and look
after him.' Well, I'm not a poor fellow and I don't want looking after.
I can manage for myself very nicely. And I don't want any women hanging
round. I'm sick of women, and that's flat."

"I'm not pretending it's not all my own fault. It is. ALL my own fault,
but I don't want any one coming round and saying so. AND I don't want
any pity. You've had a nice romantic idea in your head, saving the
sinner and all the rest of it. Well, you can get back to your parson.
He's the sort for that kind of stuff."

"Indeed I haven't," said Maggie. "I don't care whether you're a sinner
or not. You're being too serious about it all, Martin. We were old
friends. When I heard you were in London I came to see you. That's all.
I may as well stay here as anywhere else. Aunt Anne's dead
and--and--Uncle Mathew too. There's nowhere else for me to go. I don't
pity you. Why should I? You think too much about yourself, Martin. It
wasn't to be clever that I got these things. I was hungry, and I didn't
want to eat in an A.B.C. shop."

"Oh, I don't know," he said, turning away from the table.

He stood up, fumbling in his pocket. He produced a pipe and some
tobacco out of a paper packet. As he filled it she saw that his hand
was trembling.

He turned finally upon her.

"Whatever your plan was it's failed," he said. "I'm going to bed
straight away now. And to-morrow morning early I'm off. Thank you for
the meal and--good-night and good-bye."

He gave her one straight look. She looked up at